Yotam Ottolenghi - Plenty. Do you have it? Are the recipes a complete faff (impossible to find ingredients etc)

[SpawnChorus]

Had a quick peek at it the other day and it looked v tempting, but I didn't scrutinise the faffiness aspect.

he is synonymous with faff

I have it. I wouldn't open it on the offchance that I'd have all the stuff in the cupboard. It's delicious food, though. I look at it when we get the veg box and plan a couple of things from it based on that.
The actual cooking isn't faffy. I just don't often have things like whole hazelnuts or pomegranates in the house.

Ha...Ottolenghi the Faffmeister, eh?

I can deal with getting hazelnuts and pomegranates...it's just when it reaches almost-impossible-to-obtain-even-in-a-city level that I throw in the towel. Like y'know...moose milk or dried sparrow eggs or summat.

Well I haven't read it cover to cover, so I can't guarantee no sparrow eggs

THought I'd have a recreational flick through.
Have found 'preserved lemon skin' and quails' eggs. Am only on pg 20
NICE food though.

FGS I am really hungry now.

I have it and have made a few recipes from it. All have been delicious and I have done for special occasions rather than weekly supper dishes.

However, I am a lazy sod keen on effective use of time, so I don't follow the recipes exactly and take a few shortcuts which I assess as not dealbreaking, iykwim.

Cool, thanks TWC :)

Just had a peek on Amazon at some of the sample pages...red orach, radicchio di treviso, red amaranth??!!

sprogger you are SUCH a ponce.

Can I come and eat at yours please?

Don't buy amaranth. Honestly, don't. It's just grit. I like quinoa and buckwheat and any other grain, really, except amaranth. Totally pointless grit.

sprogger you must have good suppliers locally

I often substitute ingreds - I grow veg so try to shoehorn in what I can get hold of, eg if I have a surplus of chard, I use it in place of spinach etc, dependent on recipe though and how important I think exact flavour is in that component.

I didn't even know it was a grain

I think you can eat the leaves as well.
I'm not going to try!

STOP PRESS
It is a 'pseudograin'
Apparently

The leaves are delicious - same as what is called Calalloo in the Caribbean. I suspect red amaranth means red amaranth leaves. Amaranth curry is the best leafy curry ever IMVHO.

You get light and dark seeded amaranths, but as far as I have ever heard the dark seeds are inedible. Red leaved amaranth is tasty and pretty though.

(Caveat, I never cook anything from a recipe books, I just grow a lot of weird veg!)

BTW pseudograin just means that it is eaten like a cereal grain but isn't a grass.

pseudograin...i'm imagining it with a little goatee beard and a penchant for french poetry and philosophy.

takver - do you grow it in your garden? Or in a greenhouse?

Yay for Takver
Do you eat the grain, then? How do you cook it? (Because I have 3/4 of a packet left )

As I don't understand any of this thread I won't be buying this cookbook. Rather disappointed as I always thought I was a ponce.

Yes to eat the grain - generally mixed 50:50 with rice and cooked with it, makes it taste more interesting.

Growing it - in the garden (and on our field), but starting it in a greenhouse & planting out late May/early June when it gets warmer.

That photo looks like a close up of what you'd expect to find at the bottom of a birdcage.